New tools to fight heart ailments at Ajax-Pickering hospital

Echocardiograms give doctors a better image to work with

Echocardiogram machines

Jason Liebregts / Metroland

AJAX -- Dr. Joseph Ricci, medical director of the Regional Cardiac Care Program, showed one of the new echocardiogram machines at Rouge Valley Ajax Pickering, which had a campaign last year to raise money to buy three new machines. Durham Region also kicked in $500,000. March 14, 2014

DURHAM -- Three new state-of-the-art echocardiograms at the Rouge Valley Ajax and Pickering hospital are giving doctors better images so they can provide better patient care.

The three units, along with a portable machine, are in constant use, said Dr. Joe Ricci, program chief of Rouge Valley’s Cardiac Care Program.

Money for the machines was raised primarily last year with the Heart of It All campaign. Also, Durham Region donated $1.5 million to the hospital, with $1 million used towards the purchase of an MRI and the remainder for the echocardiograms.

Each machine costs about $250,000.

Dr. Ricci said the machines take “an image of the heart. It allows us to see an image of the heart. We can see the walls, the valves, we can see how the heart is working. We can see fluid around the heart. We can see clots really well.”

The hospital had been using echocardiograms that were 10 years old, he added.

“The images weren’t as good. This is state-of-the-art, the quality of the image and what we can do with it,” Dr. Ricci noted.

He noted the three machines are “all in use non-stop. We’re talking about getting another one. All three are busy all the time.

“It’s pretty exciting. We can use them anywhere we need it -- here or in the ER,” he said while showing off the machines in the cardiac diagnostics unit.

Software for the machines can be updated, the doctor noted.

“The quality of the software makes the difference.”

Durham Region Chairman Roger Anderson said, “If we don’t have good quality health care, companies won’t look toward Durham. Along with the college and universities, it’s that important.”